For the first time in Canada, a Toronto hospital will live tweet a heart bypass operation early Thursday morning, photographs and all, to educate Canadians about heart disease.
Beginning at 8 a.m., Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital will post 140-character updates about the procedure, including pictures by its staff photographer, as well as short videos to @Sunnybrook.
“What’s happening will be explained very simply for a lay audience, with the goal of educating the public about heart disease and coronary artery bypass,” hospital spokesperson Marie Sanderson said.
Bypass surgery aims to improve blood flow to the heart after arteries are blocked by a buildup of plaque.
One of the hospital’s residents will also be on hand to answer questions from Twitter users. The event even has its own hashtag: #SBheart.
An archive of all tweets will be posted to sunnybrook.ca/Sbheart.
The live tweet event is not only a first in Canada, but also marks another special occasion. The patient, Lou, turns 57 on Thursday.
But Sunnybrook is not the first hospital to live tweet an operation. On May 9, 2012, Memorial Hermann in Houston live tweeted brain surgery, with graphic photographs and short videos from the OR.
And in May 2013, as surgeons at UCLA implanted a brain pacemaker in a 39-year-old man, updates were posted to both Twitter and Instagram.
